disrupting myself, or the jump from Product Marketing to Product Management

Day 49: Trust and saying “it is…” instead of “I think it should…”

As a new product manager with limited knowledge of the code base (and not being the one making actual changes), the innate tendency is to self-preservation – “I think this fix is ready” or “It should have been changed”, rather than “It’s done”.

At least for me, it boils down to a matter of trust. Am I willing to trust my devs? Or rather, am I willing to swallow pride and shoulder some of the blame for a mistake?

After all, if I’m not sure (or at least willing to take the consequences), how can stakeholders trust me?

I’ve been trying to be more absolute when responding to stakeholders. Usually I say something along the lines of “It’s done” and add a suffix, “… If this is not the way it’s working for you, please let me know”. Bugs and mistakes should be an expected part of software development after all. One day, these commitments I make may bite me back. But without them, who’s gonna trust me?

This is the part where company culture and acceptance of failure comes in. And I’m glad so far it seems my company accepts it.

I jumped from Product Marketing to Product Management at Zalora recently. These posts represent a journal of my learnings and reflections. Feel free to connect on Twitter @wasabigeek.